Riviera Hotel Gilgit

... the first town in Pakistan and it’s customs time…In 15 minutes time they do a medical check (fill in a paper ;-), they check our car and they do the paperwork and put a stamp in our passport! We can hardly belief the easiness and friendliness of the people here…No complaints what so ever. Haha Mister customs asks our relationship and assumes we are mother and daughter. Thinking he makes a joke, I thank him with a smile from ear to ear but it ...

... KKH. We were joined also by his cousin Sadruddin, an entertaining man who was great company on our travels. <br><br>On the way to Gilgit, we passed through Chalt which is indeed the site of the continental collision of the Indo-Pakistan and Eurasian plates. The Indo-Pakistan Continent sub-ducted under the Eurasian Mass around 60 to 70 million years ago and the result of this collision was the formation of the Karakoram and Himalayan mountains, the youngest and ...

... nice example was that by the river I saw a group of older men milking their goats straight into the teapot to make their chai! The others started to think about moving on - our plan was back to Rawelpindi and then onto Peshawar. R was in a little bit of a hurry because he soon had to leave for India, but I was reluctant to leave the area so we arranged that I would stay a few days longer and catch the bus with M, who was also going that way ...

... like for the women that live here - they don't usually go to the shops and then it's only accompanied. When they have to buy bras, make up or other personal products they have to point and ask because it's all behind the counters, with men hanging around all the shops just watching. The chai culture is very different too - in Europe it would be mainly women in the coffee shops but here it's all men sipping tea and nibbling on cake.

... at the fort they organized tea, biscuits and bread from the local people. We sat on a wooden veranda at the fort, with beautiful snowy surroundings and the group of locals we had 'collected' and here we relaxed and made some music - some singing, some clapping, some dancing and a drum from a plastic container, it was perfect. We also met a large group of women, which is a rarity here! They were ...

... for other vehicles to make a convoy to pass through some sensitive areas. We also had several chai stops and at one, S and I jumped out, leaving the others sleeping. As we ordered Chai we were alarmed to see the bus drive off but others assured us it would be back - they had to fix the tyre. We were stuck at the outdoor chai shop for about an hour in the cold without our bags or jackets - stomping around to keep warm and wondering what was going on! It eventually ...

... I thought it would be better to see just a bit of Northern Pakistan than none at all, especially after reading "Three Cups of Tea," which describes the area and its people in great detail. We took a bus for five hours from Lahore to Rawalpindi (near Islamabad), and then walked for twenty minutes to the long distance bus terminal, and climbed onto a surprisingly luxurious bus for the 18 hour ovenight trip ...

... a long discussion with Raji who ran the Medina Guides office we decided upon a 3 day, 2 night trek in Fairy Meadows to ease us in gently. Besides, Alex is not a keen walker so we had his best interests at heart. The truth is, the other treks were 5 dayers and with the weather turning, sounded terrifying. Little did I know what we were letting ourselves in for! Raji promised us that the Fairy Meadows trek rated easy on the difficulty scale. Well the actual walking ...

... here, including the second highest mountain, K2, which claimed 11 lives last week. The Karakoram (crumbling black rock) Highway links central Pakistan to China in the north. The border is rated the highest on the planet, on the Khunjerab Pass, at close to 5,000m. Up the highway and down its byways cities turn to towns, in turn villages, extended homesteads, then nomadic tents and goat and yak herds. East of the road lies fractious Kashmir, north the tiny crack into Muslim ...

... was the day after but Eric and Jullien were going on a warm up trek.... I could not bare to just sit in bed here (one because it was about 45degress and the bed being in a room with 12 other people not exactly comfortable especially with the amount of flies and also as there was so much amazing stuff to see) so I decided to join the trek and try and sweat this thing out. As treks in Pakistan go it was relatively easy but ...